Digitally Fatigued?

I have Facebook and Twitter (personal and professional accounts). I have multiple email accounts and get over 60 messages each day (a good chunk of it is advertising). I text. I am a member of various message boards. I read industry newsletters. I subscribe to blogs. I get a news feed delivered. Hi, my name is Michelle and I spend way too much time online!

Throughout the day, I often feel like I am plugged in more than I’m not. Granted, a lot of it comes with the territory of my profession, but it streams into my personal life as well.

Even on our last vacation I couldn’t escape technology. Although I rarely visited Facebook and Twitter, and barely checked my email, as we sat on a beach overlooking the Pacific Ocean I found myself texting a friend back home. Sure … it could have waited. I didn’t have to answer her text. But texting, emailing and updating a Facebook status has become second nature.

How many times have you been in the middle of doing something fun and stopped to update your Facebook status or send a tweet? How many times have you actually thought in terms of what your next status should be? Have you ever taken a picture specifically for your profile?

Don’t get me wrong, I have fully embraced the increasing hold technology has on my life. In fact, while waiting in line at a popular amusement park I used a wait-time app for my iphone to figure out what ride with the shortest line we wanted to do next. There is a technological application for EVERYTHING … even a vacation!

But, with all this technology, it is easy to become digitally fatigued! Although I didn’t miss my junk mail, my Facebook, my Twitter, my blogfeeds etc., actually enjoyed my time without it, and even thought ‘who needs it anyway’, it was easy to jump back into it all at record speed, without even realizing it.

Social networking is now the most popular online activity, ahead of sending e-mails, searching the Internet and playing games! (Of course, sites like Facebook allow you to search, play games and send messages all-in-one). Last year, the average Internet user spent 66% more time on social media sites than in 2009.

Now with Google’s version of social networking, Google+, there is yet another website for people to add to their ever-growing sites that they want to visit daily (or multiple times per day).

But, trying to cut back social networking time and opportunities is hard to do. Especially for businesses trying to succeed online. Sure, a person can shut-down their profiles and live in a digitally-deleted world – – though they may have feelings of withdrawal and may wonder if they are missing out on or being left out of the social scene. But, for a business with an Internet Marketing platform and goals, it is imperative that they manage and work their social networking profiles, which requires time.

The most active users of social network websites rely on daily routines, automation and syndication to ensure that all their platforms get updated regularly.

Even keeping up on email can be tiring! Add to that updating your blog, making friends on Facebook and coming up with witty tweets and it is no wonder we all need a digital vacation every once in a while.

But, even when we are feeling digitally fatigued, it is important for businesses to spend the time on social media websites. Building your social media presence through websites such as Facebook and Twitter is important for building your brand and enhancing your Internet marketing platform. For many businesses, it is just another task that is added to their daily to-do list – much like checking email.

Others, especially those who haven’t fully embraced technology within their personal life, find managing social media is a lot harder, more time consuming and generally a lot easier to forget about.

But don’t! While it may be okay to take a vacation from technology here and there (much like you do from work!), regular updates and maintenance of your profiles is required for your business to really garner a good social media presence.